The 'Little House on a Prairie' Vacations Your 8-Year-Old Self Will Thank You For
Get your copy of “Pioneer Girl,” the original autobiography Wilder penned for adults this week. (AP)
“Oh, Pa!”
This fall marks the 40th anniversary of the television show Little House on the Prairie. (Sorry if that just made you gasp, but it’s true! Don’t worry, you still look very young.)
If you were a child of the ’70s or ’80s (or have channel-hopped past the Hallmark Channel in recent years, where it still airs multiple times a day) you are likely familiar with the trials, tribulations, and heart-warming adventures of the Ingalls family and surrounding townsfolk in 1880s Minnesota (or at least Hollywood’s 1970s version of it, which often included the very unprairie-like moutainous foothills of Southern California).
For little girls (and the brothers who were forced to consume Little House by association) Melissa Gilbert’s spunky, independent Laura offered an easy, relatable role model, with horses, buggies and braids to boot. What more could a pre-Internet preteen ask for? That Laura was based on a real life person simply gave the show an added level of fascination.
These braids enchanted millions of little girls. (AP)
As fans likely know, the television show was roughly based on the Little House on the Prairie series of books authored by the real life Laura Ingalls Wilder between 1932 and 1943. Written when Wilder was in her 60s, the books were based on her itinerant childhood on the American prairie frontier between the years 1870 and1889. That all the places mentioned in the book exist in real life, and can be found on a map, is at least part of what drives readers’ ongoing devotion to the series; to date it has sold more than 41 million copies and is published in over 40 languages. Now, 82 years after the first book was published, Laura fans are about to be given access to the Little House mother lode. This week the first copies of the annotated Pioneer Girl, the original autobiography Wilder penned for adults before changing it to a children’s series after it was rejected by the publisher, will be shipped.
Fortunately it is still possible to visit many of the houses mentioned in the books, though having gone to most of them at one time or another I can tell you some trips are more worth it than others. The Ingalls’ path across the Midwestern states, while highly trafficked by late 19th century pioneer standards – and roughly connected today by the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Highway — does not exactly lend itself to modern-day travel booking practices.
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Actress Melissa Sue Anderson, left, who plays Mary for the television series “Little House on the Prairie,” is escorted by actor Michael Landon, who plays her father, during the taping of Mary’s wedding. (AP)
By and large, these are places more easily tacked on to road trips, or summer driving vacations. However, should there come a time when an 8-year-old (be it your inner one, or your actual one) has been charged with the travel plans, here’s what’s worth your time (and what may not be unless you are really, truly a Laura junkie).
If you spent any part of your childhood donning bonnets and plating your hair into braids, this is the place for you. Although never mentioned in the television show, this is where the last five books in the series take place. Located in in the southeastern part of the state, De Smet (current population 1,089) has not changed all that much since the Ingalls family arrived at the Surveyors’ House in the fall of 1879. This fact alone makes it the most unique and magical of all the Wilder homes; it’s very, very easy to feel like you have stepped through the pages, and possibly back into your childhood. Three miles to the southwest of De Smet are lakes Henry and Thompson, which Almanzo and Laura buggied to on their Sunday courting trips, Mr. Loftus’s store still stands on Main Street, as does the school Laura and Carrie attended. The Surveyors’ House, where the Ingalls family wintered (their closest neighbors were 60 miles away across an open frozen prairie) remains and has been refitted to appear as it did in the books, and one mile south of town is the Ingalls homestead itself. The original house no longer remains, though the five cotton trees Pa planted, one for Ma and each of his daughters, still stand. In recent years the homestead has been refurbished and set up for tours. Throughout the month of July, there is a Little House pageant reenacting one of the books.
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Mansfield, Mo.
Welcome to the motherland. (Glynnis MacNicol)
This is the Mecca. Located three and a half hours south of St. Louis, Mansfield may not be terribly easy to reach, but go. Go, go, go. Laura and Almanzo purchased Rocky Ridge in 1894 for $100 (Wilder carried a single $100 bill representing all of their savings all the way to Missouri from De Smet), and the two remained here the rest of their lives.
Make sure to get a selfie with Laura. (Glynnis MacNicol)
This is where Laura wrote all the books. After her death in 1957, it was turned into a museum and was subsequently designated a National Historic Landmark.
The property is home to the the Laura Ingalls Wilder - Rose Wilder Lane Museum, which houses among other things Pa’s fiddle (!!!) and the piece of lace Ida gave Laura on her wedding day (!!), along with handwritten letters from Pa and original manuscripts for the books.
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We’ve never been so excited to see a fiddle. (Glynnis MacNicol)
There are two houses on the property, the one Laura and Almanzo built for themselves and the stone house their daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, a successful writer in her own right, had built for them in the 1928. This latter was outfitted with electricity and running water decades before the rest of the Ozarks and is also where Laura penned the first books in the series.
Be immediately transported back to your childhood. (Glynnis MacNicol)
This is where the television show was ostensibly set and where the book On the Banks of Plum Creek took place, though Wilder never actually mentioned the town by name. This is where Laura first feuded with her nemesis, Nellie Olson, where the grasshopper plague descended and destroyed Pa’s bumper crop, and where Mary went blind. It’s also where the family lived for a time in a dugout (something that sounds extremely awesome when you are 8, less so as an adult). There is a museum here that houses a number of artifacts, including memorabilia from stars of the television show. The dugout site remains open to the public, and during the summer months the town hosts a series of pageants and lookalike contests. Perhaps helpful to note, Walnut Grove is actually only two and a half hours by car east of De Smet and less than three hours southwest of Minneapolis.
Little House on the Prairie, near Independence, Kan. (in Laura’s day, part of the Osage Diminished Reserve)
The house no longer exists, though a small replica has been reconstructed and is open to visitors April through October each year. This is a “blink and you miss it” spot – there are directions on the website advising visitors to ignore their GPS.
Little House in the Big Woods, Pepin, Wis.
There is no longer a house, and the Big Woods are now farmland. There is a recreated cabin on the site, as well as a museum in Pepin that houses artifacts from Laura’s time.
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